Pharah needs a nerf on console

[ThatsOurEric]

Pharah is a friggin' cancer.

Being able to fly gives her such an unfair advantage over the majority of the roster,
let alone how she has very VERY few counters. Yet she on the other hand, counters
quite a large amount of the roster.

[Volitar]

Pharah is a friggin' cancer.

Being able to fly gives her such an unfair advantage over the majority of the roster,
let alone how she has very VERY few counters. Yet she on the other hand, counters
quite a large amount of the roster.

IMO she is the character with the most and the hardest counters.

[HumbleDuck]

I dont play on consoles, but on PC, she is OK.
Maybe her direct hit damage is a bit too high, but given that phara is at her best when diving the enemy back line and flanking healers, I'd say widow, macree, ana, and soldier are all direct counters to her.

[ThatsOurEric]

IMO she is the character with the most and the hardest counters.

Like who?

Soldier & McCree are NOT Pharah counters. Only their Ults are hard counters. Otherwise, a halfway
decent Pharah can obliterate the both of them well before she gets killed. Their weapon damage
decreases over distance, especially the spread over Soldier's gun. Whereas Pharah's rockets do the
same high damage at any range. Furthermore, she has the added benefit of splash damage.

Most other characters can harass her at best. Zen can harass her, but he can't 1v1 her and not heal.
Likewise, now that Ana's had her damage nerfed, she can't either. And either way, them trying to
kill Pharah makes them stop doing what they need to : healing the team.

Orisa can harass her, and even then, barely. Winston can harass her by jumping, but he doesn't do the
damage to kill her before she can kill him. Hanzo can reach, but aiming to hit her is difficult.

Widowmaker is probably the only hard counter to Pharah.

[HumbleDuck]

Like who?

Soldier & McCree are NOT Pharah counters. Only their Ults are hard counters. Otherwise, a halfway
decent Pharah can obliterate the both of them well before she gets killed. Their weapon damage
decreases over distance, especially the spread over Soldier's gun. Whereas Pharah's rockets do the
same high damage at any range. Furthermore, she has the added benefit of splash damage.

Most other characters can harass her at best. Zen can harass her, but he can't 1v1 her and not heal.
Likewise, now that Ana's had her damage nerfed, she can't either. And either way, them trying to
kill Pharah makes them stop doing what they need to : healing the team.

Orisa can harass her, and even then, barely. Winston can harass her by jumping, but he doesn't do the
damage to kill her before she can kill him. Hanzo can reach, but aiming to hit her is difficult.

Widowmaker is probably the only hard counter to Pharah.

I should disagree with you on phara being able to "obliterate" macree and soldier.
Yes, their damage will fall off, but if phara is that far, she is not a priority target anyways. even in case of a 1v1, soldier and macree both can kill her at medium range, and at long range, if you die to her rockets, well you are just bad.

[Matchles]

I should disagree with you on phara being able to "obliterate" macree and soldier.
Yes, their damage will fall off, but if phara is that far, she is not a priority target anyways. even in case of a 1v1, soldier and macree both can kill her at medium range, and at long range, if you die to her rockets, well you are just bad.

Agreed. I hate when "git gud" is the answer. But if they can't consistently kill Pharah with McCree or Soldier or at least take her out of the match to the point she is ineffective on a regular basis; their skill is the problem.

[Woobels]

McCree and 76 are Pharah counters unless they're horseshit at the game, if they're aiming in her general direction she can't do what she wants and she shouldn't be destroying your team, ever, in no situation unless the Pharah grossly outskills them in which its a good thing she can win the matchup, she should be winning if the Pharah player is way better.

An individual 76/Mcree do however not counter PhaMercy, you need a Widowmaker, double hitscan + a good Zen or Ana for that imo, but you should also be playing around them not having as much healing in that comp and either not having a Lucio or Ana.

Also make sure you're actually helping your hitscan heroes to fight her because they obviously can't do their job if a Winston or Tracer is jumping them constantly, people blame hitscans way too quickly if the Pharah isn't being dealt with right away.

*All of this is PC only, I can imagine Pharah being tough to handle with controllers.

[Endus]

McCree and 76 are Pharah counters unless they're horseshit at the game, if they're aiming in her general direction she can't do what she wants and she shouldn't be destroying your team, ever, in no situation unless the Pharah grossly outskills them in which its a good thing she can win the matchup, she should be winning if the Pharah player is way better.

I really don't like people saying this, because it's really not true.

The falloff on Soldier 76's rifle drops down to 6 damage per bullet, at long ranges (55 meters and beyond). That means a full clip that all hits Pharah perfectly does, at most, 150 damage.

McCree's damage drops off to 20 per shot past 45 meters.

If your aim is perfect at that range, you're not a negligible threat, but those damage numbers aren't remotely spectacular, either. Unless you're getting perfect headshots at those ranges, you're going to need more than a single clip to take out a Pharah that's getting no healing support, and if she's paying attention, you're dodging missiles whose splash damage does at least 30 damage.

It's hard to get precise because we've got aim considerations in play, and Pharah can be predictively bombing where McCree/Soldier are hiding, but I just don't see the argument that these two are strong counters. Ana only needed three shots to take out a Pharah from full health, and now needs 4, and that always felt like a crapshoot too, at best.

You can shoot back with Soldier/McCree, but Widow/Bastion are closer to proper counters IMO (Bastion in Recon mode; he's got way more health than Soldier, nearly an identical rifle, and better self-healing).

[Woobels]

I really don't like people saying this, because it's really not true.

The falloff on Soldier 76's rifle drops down to 6 damage per bullet, at long ranges (55 meters and beyond). That means a full clip that all hits Pharah perfectly does, at most, 150 damage.

McCree's damage drops off to 20 per shot past 45 meters.

If your aim is perfect at that range, you're not a negligible threat, but those damage numbers aren't remotely spectacular, either. Unless you're getting perfect headshots at those ranges, you're going to need more than a single clip to take out a Pharah that's getting no healing support, and if she's paying attention, you're dodging missiles whose splash damage does at least 30 damage.

It's hard to get precise because we've got aim considerations in play, and Pharah can be predictively bombing where McCree/Soldier are hiding, but I just don't see the argument that these two are strong counters. Ana only needed three shots to take out a Pharah from full health, and now needs 4, and that always felt like a crapshoot too, at best.

You can shoot back with Soldier/McCree, but Widow/Bastion are closer to proper counters IMO (Bastion in Recon mode; he's got way more health than Soldier, nearly an identical rifle, and better self-healing).

If the Pharah doesn't have a Mercy then she shouldn't be absolutely destroying your team if you play 76/McCree, the only issue is when you're getting dove ontop of having to deal with the Pharah, both of them are oppressive enough to her that she'd have to get down to heal up/hide etc.

I guess it's map dependant though, access to high ground is pretty relevant for both the hitscan heroes and the Pharah herself in that match up, which is why I like Pharah more on maps like Nepal Shrine or Illios Well which doesn't really have super amazing high ground for either McCree/76.

[Endus]

If the Pharah doesn't have a Mercy then she shouldn't be absolutely destroying your team if you play 76/McCree, the only issue is when you're getting dove ontop of having to deal with the Pharah, both of them are oppressive enough to her that she'd have to get down to heal up/hide etc.

I guess it's map dependant though, access to high ground is pretty relevant for both the hitscan heroes and the Pharah herself in that match up, which is why I like Pharah more on maps like Nepal Shrine or Illios Well which doesn't really have super amazing high ground for either McCree/76.

That's sort of my point though.

If you're getting into needing the map layout to favour a particular hero, then you're not really talking about a direct hero counter, which is exactly my point. It's way easier for Soldier/McCree to take out Pharah compared to, say, a Junkrat or a Reaper, but that's because the latter two just don't have ANY real vertical ranged capacity.

It's like if an enemy Widowmaker is on a high perch; you can't expect Tracer to shoo her off of it when she can't get UP to it. Soldier 76 CAN shoot back at her, but she can headshot the Soldier who tries, so that's not really a "counter" at all. Not like a Winston leaping at her would be.

[Woobels]

That's sort of my point though.

If you're getting into needing the map layout to favour a particular hero, then you're not really talking about a direct hero counter, which is exactly my point. It's way easier for Soldier/McCree to take out Pharah compared to, say, a Junkrat or a Reaper, but that's because the latter two just don't have ANY real vertical ranged capacity.

It's like if an enemy Widowmaker is on a high perch; you can't expect Tracer to shoo her off of it when she can't get UP to it. Soldier 76 CAN shoot back at her, but she can headshot the Soldier who tries, so that's not really a "counter" at all. Not like a Winston leaping at her would be.

I suppose I see what you mean, however there are plenty of games where the hitscan hero with some support can handle Pharah by herself quite well and you shouldn't bust out the Widowmaker/Bastion blindly against her because they're harder to fit in a comp than either 76 or McCree.

Another hero I forgot to mention that actually 'deals' with Pharah very well is D.Va, while she cannot exactly take out a Pharah she can quite easily remove a lot of her damage from the field, which is really effective on the more open maps where the hitscan heroes can't deal with her, this is pretty much the only way professional teams have been dealing with PharMercy as Widowmaker is just super difficult to fit on a team sometimes, especially with how strong dive is this meta. (Winston is particular is very, very good now, easily the 2nd best tank)

It's difficult to judge how balanced Pharah is before she definitely does reign in Gold/Platinum and then her succes rate seems to drop (from my own experience, she isn't as dominant in Diamond and seems quite balanced there really)

Again this ignoring the PharMercy combo though, which I personally believe to be an issue and possibly straight up overpowered.

[Endus]

Again this ignoring the PharMercy combo though, which I personally believe to be an issue and possibly straight up overpowered.

Yeah, it's such a strong pick it basically screams "have a skilled Widowmaker or prepare to be frustrated". One suggestion I pushed forward in another thread was to require Mercy to "land" before letting her "fly" again. For most heroes, that's not an issue, it's really only Pharah who lets Mercy fly around constantly, floating down and boosting up to maintain height. Nerfing that one thing hoses Phamercy combos without otherwise really affecting Mercy. And she can still fly up to top off a Mercy, it just means she's not hanging out with Pharah 100% of the time, generally; it just gets too easy to maintain the damage boost on Pharah and heal her up if she takes any fire at all.

[Woobels]

Yeah, it's such a strong pick it basically screams "have a skilled Widowmaker or prepare to be frustrated". One suggestion I pushed forward in another thread was to require Mercy to "land" before letting her "fly" again. For most heroes, that's not an issue, it's really only Pharah who lets Mercy fly around constantly, floating down and boosting up to maintain height. Nerfing that one thing hoses Phamercy combos without otherwise really affecting Mercy. And she can still fly up to top off a Mercy, it just means she's not hanging out with Pharah 100% of the time, generally; it just gets too easy to maintain the damage boost on Pharah and heal her up if she takes any fire at all.

Agreed, it is very difficult to fix this though as I don't think either individual hero is close to overpowered, but I your suggestion for Mercy is sensible.

[Deleted]

Yeah, it's such a strong pick it basically screams "have a skilled Widowmaker or prepare to be frustrated". One suggestion I pushed forward in another thread was to require Mercy to "land" before letting her "fly" again. For most heroes, that's not an issue, it's really only Pharah who lets Mercy fly around constantly, floating down and boosting up to maintain height. Nerfing that one thing hoses Phamercy combos without otherwise really affecting Mercy. And she can still fly up to top off a Mercy, it just means she's not hanging out with Pharah 100% of the time, generally; it just gets too easy to maintain the damage boost on Pharah and heal her up if she takes any fire at all.

So because of the Pharmercy combo you want to nerf either Pharah or Mercy? Neither need a nerf. I do agree that it's extremely powerful, I can be so aggressive when a Mercy on me I feel dirty doing it. But seriously, either the majority of the people in this thread are extremely bad, or Pharah really is a huge issue on console. She's not on PC. As someone else mentioned, Pharah has the most direct hard counters out of pretty much everyone. Pharah is a dive hero, harassing the healers or squishie backline, not a long range trash dealing hero which the majority play (These people don't use the most out of her). I don't like being up against high end Master/Grandmaster McCrees. They hardly miss. And just a few days ago I was up against a ~4400 Soldier main who I just couldn't beat in 1v1, which is a rare thing.

So many heroes can change the dive playstyle of a Pharah. A single dwarf on the enemy team already annoys me. Symmetra with her Shield Gen makes it tough to deal with the healers. Tanks like Dva and Roadhog make flanking/diving troublesome. And all the hitscans give you a hard time. And they are all very frequent hero picks.

We're coming once again at the same point. Play Pharah at higher levels (And not just gold/platinum etc) and you'll see that it's one of the hardest heroes to play effectively, simply because of all the counters.

[Matchles]

I really don't like people saying this, because it's really not true.

The falloff on Soldier 76's rifle drops down to 6 damage per bullet, at long ranges (55 meters and beyond). That means a full clip that all hits Pharah perfectly does, at most, 150 damage.

McCree's damage drops off to 20 per shot past 45 meters.

A Pharah that far out shouldn't be effective anyway. At 50+ meters her rockets take at least 2 seconds to reach their target. If she's consistently hitting from that far, the team needs to wake the fuck up. Not to mention Solider also has his Helix rockets which are much faster and have no damage drop off. Soldier can also close the distance easily with sprint.

[BananaHandsB]

When a team needs to go all in like this to counter 1 hero its a problem. They nerfed the redesigned bastion for this very reason. If the whole team does this then they still leave the other 5 players on the pharahs team to just destroy, thats not a counter.

He wasn't saying you need to all of those to counter her lol. He was listing the viable options. Even one good hitscan will ruin pharah's day.

- - - Updated - - -

So because of the Pharmercy combo you want to nerf either Pharah or Mercy? Neither need a nerf. I do agree that it's extremely powerful,

Having a mercy flying around with pharah is a gimmick that doesn't work in any decent level of play. It's about the easiest way to get your mercy wrecked, which is last thing u want.